Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children, all of his children, safe.

The Magician's Assistant

When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine - who was also his faithful assistant for 20 years - learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well.

The Patron Saint of Liars

St. Elizabeth's is a home for unwed mothers in the 1960s. Life there is not unpleasant, and for most, it is temporary. Not so for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed. She plans to give up her baby because she knows she cannot be the mother it needs.

But St. Elizabeth's is near a healing spring, and when Rose's time draws near, she cannot go through with her plans, not all of them.

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship

The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.

Bel Canto

Somewhere in South America at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening, until a band of terrorists breaks in, taking the entire party hostage.

State of Wonder: A Novel

Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.

What Now?

Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by best-selling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, "What now?"

Re Jane: A Novel

For Jane Re, half-Korean, half-American orphan, Flushing, Queens, is the place she's been trying to escape from her whole life. Sardonic yet vulnerable, Jane toils, unappreciated, in her strict uncle's grocery store and politely observes the traditional principle of nunchi (a combination of good manners, hierarchy, and obligation). Desperate for a new life, she's thrilled to become the au pair for the Mazer-Farleys, two Brooklyn English professors and their adopted Chinese daughter.

A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon..." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture.

Seating Arrangements

Winn Van Meter is heading for his family's retreat on the pristine New England island of Waskeke. Normally a haven of calm, for the next three days this sanctuary will be overrun by tipsy revelers as Winn prepares for the marriage of his daughter Daphne to the affable young scion Greyson Duff. Winn's wife, Biddy, has planned the wedding with military precision, but arrangements are sideswept by a storm of salacious misbehavior and intractable lust: Daphne's sister, Livia, who has recently had her heart broken by Teddy Fenn.

The Beach House

She's known as the crazy woman who lives in the big old rambling house on the top of a bluff in Nantucket, but at 65 years old, Nan doesn't care what people think. If her neighbours are away, why shouldn't she skinny dip in their swimming pools? Her husband died 20 years ago, her beauty has faded, her family flown, and when she discovers that the money she thought would last forever is running out and she may lose her beloved house, she knows she has to make drastic changes.

The Paying Guests

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

Incendiary: A Novel

Written as an open letter to Osama bin Laden from a distraught woman whose husband and son were killed in a massive suicide bombing, Incendiary was published in the UK on July 7, 2005 - eerily, the day of the London underground bombings. It went on to win the 2006 Somerset Maugham Award; was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize; won the United States’ Book-of-the-Month Club’s First Fiction Award; and won the Prix Special du Jury at the French Prix des Lecteurs 2007.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and our narrator, Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. "I spent the first eighteen years of my life defined by this one fact: that I was raised with a chimpanzee," she tells us. "It's never going to be the first thing I share with someone. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren't thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern's expulsion, I'd scarcely known a moment alone. She was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half, and I loved her as a sister."

The Children Act

Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child's welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts.

Prodigal Summer

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches them from an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and her solitary life.

Straight Man

Russo's protagonist is William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the reluctant chairman of the English department of a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt. In the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvaceous adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits, and threaten to execute a goose on local television.

Secrets of Eden: A Novel

"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about ...angels.

Publisher's Summary

Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children, all of his children, safe.

Set over a period of 24 hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from one another, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her best-selling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.

What the Critics Say

"Run is a book that sets out inventively to contend with the temper of our times, and by the end we feel we really know the Doyle family in all its intensity and with all its surprises." (Publishers Weekly)

"Bel Canto," Patchett's earlier book, is one of my all time favorite love stories and I was, I think, hoping to find another treasure in "Run." Using the same story line - strangers cast together through circumstances over which they have no control who must deal with a life changing series of events - "Run" lacked the passion and tenderness of "Bel Canto," and seemed instead a story with an agenda. Then, when I listened to the interview at the end, I found out that it was indeed, the author says,a story about politics. Maybe next time she could just write an essay.

Four stars is probably more generous for this selection than I should be. This book has good points and bad points. Although the main characters are interesting, to me they were extremes. One son is too scholarly, another son is too sentimental, the third son is too messed up. The father is, well I am not sure what he is. I think he could have been more. The little girl gives us most of the story, but her character at the end is not consistent (or less than complementary) of my perception of her in the main story.

There were many pieces that I did not get. The statue of the madonna was one. With the beginning building it up so, I figured it would carry more significance throughout the main story. If it did, I missed it. The birth mother should have been a bigger piece. But again, I must have missed it if it was there. There were such minute details about events and feelings, but these were not all pulled together.

The narration was good. I did not find it awful as another reviewer said. Voices were differentiated well.

All in all, it wasn't "painful" to listen to, but I was not thrilled. If others say her previous books were better, I would choose to get them and not bother with this one.

I had higher expectations for the author of Bel Canto and Truth and Beauty. I hesitated to buy her latest novel, but after listening to the Audible interview, I was intrigued. It was an ok story, but not my favorite. It was a bit slow, and I never really got attached to any of the characters. Patchett's gift for description was less apparent in this novel. It was a decent read, but not of the quality I expected from Ann Patchett.

I was greatly looking forward to listening to this book because I admired Bel Canto, the author's previous novel, so much and because Run had gotten excellent reviews. Unfortunately, the book did not meet my expectations. It managed to be both melodramatic and boring at the same time. Despite the dramatic revelations that occur at various turns throughout the book, I found my attention wandering constantly. Part of the problem was the shallowness of the characters--Teddy is the warm, open one, Tip is the cerebral, emotionally stunted one, Sullivan is the prodigal son and so on. Finally, I could not understand the author's decision to set this book during a 24 hour period. It would have been much more interesting to see how these characters reacted to life-altering events of the day over the course of time instead of having them underreact and wait for a lot of cabs (as boring to read about as to do) over a period 24 hours

When I first starting listening, I realized my mistake of not first audibly previewing before buying. The narration was horrible! Worst of any book I have purchased from Audible. Flat, toneless, just awful. So bad I felt compelled to write this, as no one else commented on him in their reviews.

I stayed with it though ( as I had already wasted my money on the book just previous to this) for the story. Kept at it, kept at it, trying to care about the characters who were more symbols than developed people. Trying to buy into the rather far fetched co-incidences in the story. When one of the central characters starts talking to a ghost, I just gave up. Felt bad for another waste of money, but figured time is more valuable than 1 credit.

While this book coesn't soar to the heights of "Bel Canto", its content is certainly more accessible. I enjoyed following the journeys of the diverse, and mostly believable characters in the book. In fact, I wish there was more revealed about several of them. The author interview after the book was surprising; I didn't perceive the same political focus in the book that the author seemed to think it had, but it was value added, nonetheless.

I needed to read this for a book discussion at work. I really didn't expect to like it, because it's not the kind of book I usually enjoy. However, it turned out to be one of the best books I've read in a long time. The characterizations are excellent, both in the writing and in the performance. The story is enjoyable and memorable. I've got plenty of ideas for our book discussion, and a book I'll enjoy listening to more than once.

What about Peter Francis James’s performance did you like?

Mr. James' voice characterizations were excellent. I was able to easily distinguish between characters.

Interesting plot with great characters but this was the first audio book I almost didn't finish. The chapters were divided by some jazzy music that was so off with the mood of the story. The narrators voice along with this music was awful. Others in my book club who READ this book enjoyed it.

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